Page 27 of More Than A Feeling

She was cheating on my brother. It was unthinkable.

Only the story got worse. She didn't have a miscarriage. She had an abortion because the baby had been Malone's.

According to Malone, he’d learned from Sabine that Seamus had been using condoms, while he had not. Either way, Sabine had gotten rid of the baby. Now, I believe it’s a woman’s prerogative to make that decision—it’s her body—but this woman had manipulated all of us. She’d played on my sympathies, and on her parents’ and mine, by lying that she’d had a miscarriage due to the trauma of losing Seamus. She’d twisted the truth, telling us I’d lost a niece or nephew, and my parents a grandchild—a piece of my brother.

"Why would Seamus not want us to know?"

"I don't know, Callum. He told me to tell no one and that he'd deal with it in his way. He drove away from my parents' place, and then he was gone. I…I couldn't…."

"You could have told me," I yelled. "You could've given me that. Was he planning to divorce her?"

"He did mention that," she admitted.

Malone had been the one to tell Seamus. He'd shown him pictures, desperate because Sabine was pregnant with his child and refusing to leave Seamus. Malone wanted to marry her. In fact, despite everything she put him through, he wasstillin love with Sabine.

I recalled how Sabine had not wanted Malone to stay and have a drink with us at the restaurant. It was evident that Malone had been following Sabine—he'd been heartbroken about the baby. He'd also believed she had a miscarriage but had recently, through the work of a private investigator, learned that Sabine had had an abortion. He'd suspected as much, which was why he'd engaged a PI.

"You let her play me," I accused Fleur.

I was being unfair, and I knew it. Hadn’t I been at Sabine’s beck and call ever since I promised Seamus in church, as I stood as his best man, that I’d always be there for her if anything ever happened to him?

Fleur took a deep breath. "What do you want me to say? You think I didn't want to scream from the rooftops that she didn't deserve your love and loyalty? You don't think I wanted to tell my parents how fucked up the situation with her was? But I couldn't. I promised Seamus. And then he died."

She was loyal to a fault. But I wasn't feeling generous. I was furious. I'd have to tell my parents. I would have to talk to that bitch Sabine about this. I'd have to talk to Brian and Lenora.Fuck! It was going to be a nightmare. It already was.

"How could Sabine do this?"

I couldn't compute the loving couple I had seen with my own eyes with what I was hearing now. According to Malone, they'd dated at law school and had restarted their affair a few months after Seamus and Sabine were married. I knew for sure that Seamus never suspected. He would've told me. Was he on his way to talk to me after he confronted Sabine when he had the accident?

"Sabine was…." Fleur shook her head.

"What? No promises to Seamus should stop you now." I barked caustically.

"She's always cheated on all her boyfriends," Fleur snapped.

"Did your parents know?"

"No. They all thought she was Saint Sabine," she said with a mocking edge. "I tried to tell them about what happened with Juan Carlos, but they called me jealous and petty."

"Who the fuck is Juan Carlos?"

Fleur leaned back on her couch and closed her eyes. "It doesn't matter. The Sabine y'all see, the sophisticated, elegant, and lovely woman? That's not who she is."

I'd figured that out myself.

"You should've told me, Fleur," I tried to calm down but didn't succeed.

She opened her eyes. "And what would that have changed?"

Couldn't she see that it would've prevented us from having the issues we had? It would mean she would still be living with me.

"Only everything."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Okay, so you wouldn't have gone running to Sabine every time she yanked your chain. But it wouldn't have made you love me either, Callum. It wouldn't have changed the fact that you regretted convincing me to move in with you. It wouldn't have changed the fact that you think I'm self-involved and immature and not ready for an adult relationship. How you treated me has nothing to do with Sabine and everything to do with how you feel about me. And you don't feel good about me."

Every word was a dagger in my heart. Every fucking word. It hurt to know I'd hurt her. I didn't know how to make it better, how I could go back and not be yet another person who treated her badly, threw her away, and discarded her—believed Sabine's lies. So, I said the only thing I could, "I love you, Fleur."

She gave out a choked laugh. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "Fuck you, Callum. I don't need to be your consolation prize now that you figured out Sabine isn't the fabulous woman you thought she was."

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